April in Jersey (At long last)

Well I've been getting a bit behind with my posts of late, a lack of internet access and a busy working schedule being the main reasons for this. Eventually though, I've sorted myself some Wi-Fi and its time to do some catching up.


So..... April!
As many of you will know, during the first week of April, I made a switch to the channel islands to spend the summer working on a charter boat as a deck hand. However, with the first booking of the year not being until the 14th April, I was supposed to spend the first week settling in to Jersey life, learning the ropess on the boat and finding myself some digs. In reality though, it was essentially a week for exploring and finding marks that I'd be fishing later in the year, whilst doing a bit of fishing in the process of course. My catches during this period were fairly decent, with plenty of wrasse, garfish, turbot and mini species falling to my light gear tactics.

The time soon came though for my first day on the boat.

PB smashing Turbot - 8lb 4oz

My first Brill - 6lb dead

PB Whiting - 2lb 15oz

Monster 4lb 9oz Whiting

15lb 8oz Blonde - Andreas

Up and out by 7.30am, I met with the skipper to sort out the gear for our first party of anglers, a German trio that had come to the channel islands for 5 days to catch one thing, Turbot. This really excited me as I'd never fished for turbot off a boat and my PB was a measly 10oz. Anyway, over the 5 day period we got out on all but 1 day and its fair to say we did pretty damn good. Here are a few photo's of the catch.




New PB Pollack - 11lb 12oz

As for the rest of April, let's just say it was a fun time to be on the boat. We had a real mix of people from all over Europe and fished many different tactics over different types of ground for a wide variety of species. The highlight of April for me though came on my birthday, a wrecking trip with Tom, Brian, Chris and Peter, a group of anglers that joined together each year from different areas of the country to fish in Jersey. I had never done wreck fishing before, so again I was not sure what to expect, although my hopes were high for at least one decent fish...... if of course the guys would allow me to wet a line.


New PB Ling - !5lb 14oz

For the first few hours it was relatively quiet with just a few Pollack coming aboard to just under the 10lb mark and during this period I was unable to fish as I had rigs to make for later. As the tide eased though, the lads gave me the all clear to have a fish and I was quickly setting up to join them. After a number of fruitless drifts on live eel, I decided to make the switch to artificials, a rhubarb and custard sidewinder being the lure of choice. Two drifts later I got smashed, rod bending over double and an immediate adrenaline surge. After a really good fight, the fish was up on the surface with the skipper doing the honours with the net. It was a massive new PB Pollack of 11lb 12oz, well and truly chuffed, but it was to get better. Having changed tactics to bumping half a mackerel along the bottom, I was soon back into another heavy fish. We knew it could of been one of a few things so when it revealed itself as a nice ling, again my face lit up. At 15lb 14oz, it was again a massive new PB, beating my previous best by over 12lbs. With that I stopped fishing and returned to my duties as deck-hand, cant say I minded to much though.

That pretty much sums up April,
Hope you enjoyed reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross

A welcome break!

Had another 2 day break from work recently and as you'd expect, I made the most of my time off with a bit.... ok a lot of fishing. Here's what went down

The first day kicked off with a 6am alarm, waking me with just enough time to get to Holyhead for a charter boat trip I'd booked with mate Steve on-board MyWay with Gethyn. Due to the time of year, we didn't deceive ourselves with high expectations, but we were both secretly hopeful of a bit of rod bending action from the spurs out in Holyhead deeps. After a hour or so steaming out to the mark, the first drops saw the majority of us on the boat pick up a doggie or two, that was all of us except the skipper of course, who decided to show us all how it was done with a spurdog of around 7-8lb. After the great start though, it turned out to be a slow day. There were a few more decent fish landed including another spurdog of around 12lbs, a thorny and a decent huss for my mate Steve. My best fish of the day was a nice whiting of over a pound, probably a new PB, but this one was lucky and went free, most likely to be eaten by a huss in the near future lol......you can see from the photo that something had already had a go at it. In all though, it was a great day out on the water and couldn't have asked for nicer weather. If there's one thing I took away from this trip though, its that Geth really knows his stuff when it comes to boat angling, when targeting spurs fish the baits just off the bottom to avoid the doggy plague! Will hopefully be out with Geth again before I head South for 7 months!

As we steamed back, I was still well in the mood to fish and decided that I wanted to challenge myself, in the end coming to the conclusion that I was gonna target a tadpole fish. Having only caught one before, I didn't really have much to go off, but after a quick check of my old blog posts from last year, I saw that I'd had my last one in very similar conditions exactly one year and two days previous, how convenient :)

Fishing with my mate magic, we braved the cold and headed to the ranges with a couple of rods each. My aim for the night was to land a few new species for the year, namely tadpole fish and rockling, although I'd also be using had my heavier duty set up for congers. I chose to use a very simple 1-up, 1-down running ledger rig with rag tipped with macky for bait and a few lumi beads just for that added attraction in the depths. To say the fishing was good would be lying, but after an hour or so, I finally got some action in the form of my first rockling of 2013, a small one of the shore variety. It was a good 2 hours before I'd see any more action but sure enough, almost dead on low tide I noticed a small tap on the rod tip. I lifted my rod off the tripod and felt the line for any more bites. It wasn't long before the tap turned into a decent knock so I lifted into the fish. Knowing it was something small, I immediately got a little excited, but nowhere near as excited as I was when I saw that I had successfully caught the fish I had been targeting, A TADPOLE FISH! My happiness was easy to see and magic was amazed that I had landed one of these, having talked about them none stop since we'd arrived. I think this was the first one he'd seen and he was in agreement that they are cool fish, although another friend of mine, having seen the pics, has funnily referred to it as...... the most miserable looking fish he'd ever seen lol.

On a real high and despite the lack of further action, I decided to pack down my conger rod, leaving just my rockling rig out. It was sods law though that the next fish I'd land (which turned out to be the last) was of course a conger, which luckily had been hooked perfectly in the top lip. Getting magic to steer it onto the rocks for me, I soon had it in my grasp, the first landed conger I'd landed on this particular mark, having hooked and lost a few really good fish previously. With no more action for a further hour we decided enough was enough and off home we went. Not a particularly hectic session but ticked off all three of my nights targets, so definitely can't complain.



The following day, a new target was made, this time to do a little LRF'ing for scorpion fish and blennies. Magic was again keen to come along for a fish and had never tried this method of fishing before, so it was great to see him catch a few fish and a new species. Although the fishing was again hard work, we did pull out a handful of scorpion fish between us, with magic getting the pick of the bunch with this fella taken on red power isome. I am particularly proud of this photo as well, really want one like this myself now.

Anyway, that's all for now,
Thanks for reading and tight lines,
Ross

The end is in sight!

The end of the year is creeping up now and species hunting in particular is getting very difficult. With temperatures starting to plummet, many of the species that have spent the summer around the coastal waters of Britain are now moving off to deeper, more bait rich ground. There are however a few fish I haven't yet landed that are still targetable. To give myself a good chance of bagging a couple of these, I went up to Scotland again, firstly to the Aberdeen area where I would attempt to catch a ling and then to Loch Etive where I'd have a dabble for a spurdog.

So first stop was visiting my mate Ad in
Aberdeen for a long weekend. The promise of good sized cod and a reasonable chance of ling was to good to refuse, so off I went on a 5 hour car drive north, arriving just in time for an evening session. After a quick stretch of the legs and some of Ad's home cooked cod green curry, we were off to the mark. Baiting up with large combinations of macky, black lug, squid and crab it wasn't too long before we had a few taps, whatever it was though was not large enough to inhale the 6/0 hooks we were using. It was a good while before I had my first proper bite which resulted in my first Scottish cod of the trip, unfortunately only a small one at around 1.5lb. The next cast produced another small codling and Ad got off the mark as well. The session came to an end shortly after though when the swell picked up and we had to get off the mark quickly to avoid getting cut off. Over the following few days we tried for the bigger cod again and also ventured up to Peterhead South breakwater, the mark where I'd be targeting a ling. The highlight of these few sessions was a very big tadpole fish for Ad weighing 15.5oz, a species he'd never caught before and only the second one I have seen. The ling proved to be elusive for the duration but I won't give up on catching one just yet.

The long weekend was over before i knew it and a trip down to Edinburgh ensued where I'd be meeting up with good friend and mini-species legend, Scott Hutchison. After a night of rig making and research, the 5am alarm bells rang and we were both up and on our journey to Loch Etive, where we had booked a boat for the day through http://www.sea-fishing-loch-etive.co.uk/. The aim of the trip was for us both to tick off a new species for the year, myself desperate to get a spurdog and Scott wanting a thornback ray. We arrived in Taynuillt for first light with this scene to greet us and after a chat with the boat owner Doug Bannatyne, we were on our way to our first mark. As expected, the depth in Etive is incredible, even within casting distance from the shore we were in over 100ft of water. We tied up to a buoy and dropped down, as line kept peeling off the spool we were both wondering when we would find bottom but at 185ft we were down there. For 30 minutes the bigger baited hokkai's remained actionless so a change of plan was needed. I tackled up my plugging rod with a one-up one-down rig blinged up with plenty of lumi-beads. A 4oz bomb was all that was needed to hold bottom and in no time at all I had my first fish on. After pumping it up from the depths up came a small thorny, a good way to get off the mark. Next drop
and it was species number 2 for the day,  a lovely grey gurnard and probably the biggest one I've caught to date. Scott had now joined me with the lighter rod and it became a quite productive few hours, the majority of fish being pouting, poor cod or whiting. After a quick spot at another spot during which  I boated another 3 thornies, we decided to go and try a drift by the quarry, it was fruitless. Time was flying by and we were starting to get a little agitated by the constant hoards of manky parasite ridden whiting and poor cod. With just an hour left we headed back to the slipway where we launched just to try and see if Scott could get his thornback. After 20 minutes of nothing I suggested steaming out to the middle of Airds Bay just to see how deep it was. At over 200ft it was the deepest spot we'd fished on the day and I decided to drop down my bigger hokkai baited rig again and leave it. With a

Spurdog : Species 68

 few minutes left Scott landed a bigger whiting and began preparing the engine for motoring back to shore. Whilst he was though, I noticed a few knocks on my rod..... I left it to develop before striking and setting the hooks, fish on. After playing it up for what seemed like forever, we eventually caught sight of it and it was the species i'd come for, a spurdog. Scott quickly grabbed the net and slipped it under my fish, I'd done it, scraped one at the last possible chance and I cannot describe how happy as well as relieved I was. With that came the end of our trip and it was back to Edinburgh.

The morning of my last day in Scotland dawned and due to a drop in the wind, it gave us a chance to get down to Torness once more to try for one of the 2-spot gobies. Both Scott and Jake have had plenty of these little beauties on there previous visits so confidence was high even though it was bloody freezing. Scott kindly donated me one of his mini-fish special hooks, a size 26 tied on 0.5lb fluoro and it was go time. We both scanned the pools for the mini's and within a few seconds I had my first fish, a common goby. Then I noticed a small flounder so informed Scott and left him to try and catch it. Sure enough he did and it brought with it the first sign of a 2-spot. Out from underneath a boulder shot two of them, very interested in my power isome but not willing to take it properly. After trying for ages I nearly gave up but Scott decided to see if he could find me some bait. How he found a ragworm I'll never know but he did within minutes and so on went a slither of fresh worm. Straight away the mini's went for it and in seconds I had what we'd come for, a two-spot goby and my 69th species of the year.

The session and my trip was over, 2 new species and a cracking week in Scotland once again. Both Ad and Scott had been great hosts and I look forward to fishing with them again soon, maybe sooner than they think.  So that leaves me with just 1 species left to catch, but what will it be? Thoughts at the moment are that Ling would probably be the best to target but if your reading this and can see a species I've yet to catch that you can advise me on then please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross

Scottish Adventures with Schogsky and Hutch : Part 4 - The MOG boat trip

After having a few pints the night before at the Clashwannan, I woke up feeling a wee bit sluggish. Ever ready for another days fishing though and with it being the morning of the boat trip, I  perked up fairly quickly and started sorting the gear out with Jake and Scott. All sorted we loaded the car and left to meet with our skipper Spike at Portlogan harbour. Greetings out of the way it was launch time and we soon found ourselves steaming out to a mark to do a spot of pollack fishing. Spike was recommending macky fished under a float but as everyone knows, we are lure fisherman, so at first this was not a viable option lol. Instead, armed with a number of SP's we began working the area hopeful of a few fish. Sure enough it wasn't long before we all started getting a bit of action, with Jake getting the majority of the fish on either his arkansas shiner sluggos or his new found love, the ribsters :) Me and Scott were getting fish as well though to a number of other lures which included red gills.. Jake got the pick of the bunch though with a lovely pollock of over 6lb, which unfortunately after a bit of confusion with the skipper, was thrown back before we could get any decent photos. I decided on a change of tactic after a period of drought on the SP's and decided to drop down a set of sabikis tipped with Power Isome. To say it was slow would be an understatement but I did manage a couple more pollock and my first new species of the trip, a cuckoo wrasse ( species 51) before turning to bait to catch a few more fish. After catching a few more cuckoo's myself, Scott decided to give the rag a try as well and this soon resulted in his first cuckoo of the year. Scott also added a coalie to

the days species tally shortly after and I added a ballan also. We then had a very quick few drifts for macky before again steaming off to another mark in hope of something a little different. The skipper had decided to take us to an area of sandy bottom where he thought we'd have a decent chance of picking up some flatties along with a selection of gurnards and any other predominantly sand based species. Again we chose to fish artificials over bait tipping sabikis with Isome. Jake was first in on the opening drift with this grey gurnard, another species to add to his list for the year.Scott followed suit bagging himself his own grey gurnard on the same drift whilst I was left to watch on. After a couple more drifts and just a single pollack landed we moved out to deeper

water where the plan was to target a tope. Spike dropped anchor over one of his hopeful marks and we were all baiting up with half a mackerel whilst the skipper sorted some shurvy. Chucked out and left, the three of us dropped down with an assortment of unbaited feathers to see what was around. After hitting mackerel on the way down for a few drops we all eventually managed to get the rigs down to the sea bed. Jigging the sabikis/hokkais over the seabed was again slow but after a 10 minute lull I finally managed to start getting into a few fish. First off I levelled the scores by getting my first lure caught grey gurnard of the trip before managing to add my 2nd new species to my yearly tally in the form of a red gurnard ( species 52..also lure caught) Scott saw that I was having some success so

lending him my rod for a while I watched on as he tried to get something fr himself. Sure enough a bite did come and as it came up to the boat we both saw it was a whiting which would have been a new one for Scott. Unfortunately though as he was lifting it up from the water it threw the hook leaving us to watch it swim back down to the depths. Then a bit of excitement as my tope bait was picked up, but after an initial short run the fish never came back which was rather disappointing :( Anyway, after that Scott handed back my rod and I dropped down a couple more times to see if I could get anything else. I wasn't disappointed either as after a 10 minute wait I got another bite which resulted in a whiting (another one for the TLF species hunt). It was now time to move on as the tope baits were sitting untouched for long periods. The area we were heading to now was an area of broken ground in which we had been told we had a good chance of codling, haddock and a variety of other species. At this point in the day none of us were any longer fussed about catching on lure only so we decided to bait our hokkais with strips of

 macky and see what we could bring up. The first drop saw me and Jake get a double hook up of haddock, my first ever ever and my 3rd new species of the trip to boot (species 53). This area was proving to be a little more productive than where we

 had previously been and we were soon all landing a good number of fish. Scott managed a double of new species for himself when he landed a whiting and dogfish whilst myslef and Jake also had a few more doggies and a pollock. It was now nearing the end and so the skipper called last drift. Not expecting an awful lot down went our baited rigs and in came another doggie for Scott before I had a nice smash on my plugging rod. This felt a little better and after a spirited fight up came the only Codling of the trip at maybe 2lb, great fun. I wasn't to fussed about a photo as I was confident of bigger before the end of the year. Fingers crossed that won't come back to haunt me.

  So that was it then, the end of a cracking day out. Between us we managed a very respectable 11 species which included new lure caught species for all of us as an added bonus. Thanks to Spike for a great day out and of course it wouldn't have been anywhere near as enjoyable without the banter from Scott and Jake so thanks again fellas.

Hope you enjoyed reading,
Tight Lines,
Ross

A turn up for the books as the bass play ball in January!

                                          A MARK IN THE STRAITS 23/1/2012

As you can see, we had a very nice surprise today on our trip out. The venue chosen was a mark in the straits which I have fished a few times in summer with good success and although now being winter, I thought it was definitely worth a shot. Myself, Ed and Jon headed off to fish the tide up from mid-water. Using standard 2-hook flapper rigs baited with lug and rag I waded out as far as possible before launching a bait onto the clean ground at range. Walking back to my tripod I just had a feeling that it was going to be a good session and within 15 minutes a little tap on my rod caught my attention. As the bite developed I thought it could be a tiny pin whiting but then from nowhere the tip slammed down and before I had time to strike it was gone. Hooks re-baited I repeated the procedure again and stood waiting, only this time with my hands poised over the rod handle. Tap....... tap........ tap......... then BANG, wasn't missing it a second time though and striking almost immediately the fish was on. Now at this point there was only one fish I had thought it would be, a codling, so when the silver flanks and spiny dorsal fin of a bass (species 10) appeared on the surface my face lit up. Definitely a turn up for the books and as it was just legal at 37cm it was going home for tea! It wasn't long before Ed had a nice bite and eagerly anticipating seeing a bass show in the surf, he was thoroughly disappointed when out popped a whiting. His face told a story :) Soon after I was in again, this time a double-header of a whiting and another bass although this one was undersized and was released. Then Jon managed to get in on the action landing his first fish of the night, a whiting before then catching a small bass which was released. Nevertheless he was deighted as you can see from his cheshire grin (picture top right). Getting close to high tide we made a decision to have a few more casts before leaving and luckily for me this resulted in another two bass, one of them being just in size. Unfortunately for Ed though his last cast would see him miss an absolute clanger of a bite, just not his day. We ended the night with a total of 5 bass and 4 whiting which is more than we could have asked for in just a short session. Will definitely be returning soon for another bash!

Hope you enjoyed the read.  Tight Lines, Ross!

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM

                                     Ty Croes/Ravens Point 14th/15th Jan 2012

Well it seems the strong westerly winds of last week have been taken over by south easterlies recently, which although bitterly cold, provide us as anglers a great opportunity to get over to the west coast of the island and fish comfortably. Our chosen marks over the past few nights have been Ty Croes and Ravens Point, two marks where fish are pretty much guranteed. On Saturday we headed to Ty Croes on a mission for huss and rays. Arriving about an hour before low water,we were happy to see just the one car in the car park and had high hopes that our usual ledge was free,which fortunately it was. So myself, Ed and Jon tackled up with a mixture of pennels for the rays and heavier duty rigs for congers close in. Baits used were sandeel and mackeral to start with. I was first into a fish but knew from the bite it wasn't anything decent and sure enough in came a whiting. Then a moment of madness,as whilst Ed was setting the ratchet on one of his rods the other arched over his tripod and started ripping line. What on earth was this we thought! As Ed lifted into the fish we could see his line had moved a good 30 yards right of where he had cast and had gone across my lines. Still heading off to the right the fish had gone round the rocks infront of us and after one hell of a head-shake the line went solid. Ed tried his best to pull free but his 30lb mainline eventually gave way and the fish was gone. Our only guess was that it must have been a late season tope! With that excitement out of the way, we continued to target rays and congers but before long we were overun by whiting and dogfish (species 6). It was getting late and our excitement had faded somewhat before I eventually managed to hook something that felt a tad better. Keeping it quiet, just incase it turned out to be doggy I slowly brought it to the edge where upon surfacing my eyes lit up, as in the swell was a little thorny (species 7). A few more doggies and whiting were caught before we called it quits and headed back to the warmth of home.

Ravens Point - On the Sunday myself, Stevie G and Gav headed to Ravens point. Word of mouth had suggested that there wasnt much coming off but we thought we'd have a bash anyway. To cut a long story short, we should have listened. We had plenty of fish though so it wasn't all bad. I even managed this double header of doggies(pictured left) on my pennelled sandeel. Was gutted when they surfaced as I was sure it was going to be a huss/ray due to the weight, oh well :p. We fished the tide up from low until a few hours before high but had nothing of substance. The only reasonable fish caught being a 32cm whiting and a couple of nice dabs for me and Steve. Gav had a steady catch of whiting all night on light gear and even had a bonus when he managed to foul hook 3 gripper leads from the bottom, bonus. We called it a night when are hands decided they were no longer able to function and headed home for some nice hot coffee.

                                                       Hope you enoyed the read, Tight Lines,

                                                                             Ross

A LITTLE CLOSER TO HOME

 THE MENAI STRAITS 13/1/2012



It was nice to get out again on Friday and due to good tides we decided to stay local and fish the Straits an hour either side of high. We had intended on fishing Menai Bridge pier but after seeing that the RV Prince Madog was moored up we had a walk to find a new mark. It wasn't long before we had found a likely looking spot and so myself and Ad got the rods set up. To start with, I had a quick cast with a small gripper lead to check what sort of ground we were fishing and to my surprise it was fairly clean and had some depth, without having the problem of the current, fantastic! Rigging up with 2-hook flappers baited with a combination of fresh lug, rag and sandeel, we cast out hopeful of a good session and we were not disappointed. Within a minute I'd had my first knock and before Ad had even set up my first double header of codling (species 4) were on the bank. The fish kept coming one by one for the duration of our session. The main surprise for us, was the lack of whiting (species 5), just 2 between us in 2 hours. Very strange for the straits this time of year. The final tallies were 12 codling and 2 whiting. Not bad for a short session in the straits. The only other thing of note, was this crab (pictured bottom right) that had latched itself to my sandeel bait. I study marine biology and have never seen this crab in the straits before and after having a gander online at British crab species, couldn't identify it. It had a very pale abdomen and a very distinctive blue tint to the dactyl section of its swimming legs.

Does anyone have any idea what species this is, as I woudn't mind doing a bit of research on them?

                            

                                  Tight Lines, Ross